Charles S. Peirce frequently mentioned reading Richard Whately's Elements of Logic when he was 12 years old. Throughout his life, Peirce emphasized the importance of that experience. This valorization of Whately is puzzling at first. Early in his career Peirce rejected Whately's central logical doctrines. What valuable insight concerning logic was robust enough to survive these specific rejections? Peirce recommended a biographical approach to understanding his philosophy. This essay follows that suggestion by considering Peirce's reading of Whately in a (...) larger life context. Surprisingly many factors in Charles Peirce's personal and intellectual development were at play when he read Whately. His father, Benjamin Peirce, oversaw rigorous home schooling intended to train young Charley for a brilliant intellectual career. Laboratory experience with qualitative chemical analysis exposed the boy to the logic of scientific investigation, specifically to the hypothetico-deductive method of inquiry. However, tensions between father and son developed over Charles' wish to devote his life to studying the logic of science. The two also disagreed upon the value of formal science. Against this background we will review relevant logical doctrines of Whately's book, as well as his innovative formalizing practice of logical inquiry. Then we will see that it was Whately's lessons about formal science that were of such importance to Peirce. (shrink)

Complementing the publication of Darwin's notebooks and correspondence, this work provides access to the last remaining unpublished source of Darwin manuscript materials. It is a catalog to and a complete transcription of the marks and annotations he made in the margins of his books. The margin comments throw light on Darwin's immediate reactions to his reading matter; further comments on slips of paper stuck inside the covers of the books reveal more considered evaluation. These comments are also fully transcribed. Annotation (...) copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

Preface: Rebuilding the Spiritual Foundations of Human Civilization at the Scale of Cosmic Rationality -/- I did not anticipate that what began as a near-compulsive intellectual urge — the need to properly explain Laozi — would eventually grow into many scholarly works spanning the vast intellectual terrain of cosmology, thermodynamics, complexity science, civilization theory, AI ethics, and epistemology. Yet in retrospect, everything seems to have been inevitable: once you truly touch the scientific core of Laozi's thought, you cannot stop, because (...) that core functions like a self-organizing seed, spontaneously generating new branches in every new intellectual soil into which it is planted. -/- This book is a systematic review of those works, and a self-presentation of a complete philosophical system. Its central proposition can be stated in a single sentence: the sustainability of civilization depends upon the degree to which it aligns with the generative order of the cosmos. -/- I. The Starting Point: An Unavoidable Fundamental Perplexity -/- More than twenty years ago, when I began to read Laozi seriously, I encountered a peculiar intellectual predicament. On one hand, I had a clear sense that the Dao De Jing contained something far exceeding an ordinary philosophical text — it seemed less like the product of a particular historical moment and more like a direct record of some objective cosmic reality. On the other hand, I found that none of the existing interpretive traditions — whether Daoism's mystification, Confucianism's domestication, or modern scholarship's philological textualism — could genuinely account for the source of this sense. -/- The turning point came when I placed Laozi's "the Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to the ten thousand things" in direct comparison with modern astronomy, thermodynamics, and complex systems science. When "the Dao gives birth to One" corresponded to the Milky Way generating the Solar System; "One gives birth to Two" to the Earth condensing from the primordial solar nebula; "Two gives birth to Three" to the Earth capturing the Moon; and "Three gives birth to the ten thousand things" to the Sun-Earth-Moon trinitarian system nurturing life and civilization — a stunning recognition arose within me: Laozi was not a mystic and not a moral teacher, but the earliest scientific philosopher in human history to perceive, through philosophical intuition, the generative order of the cosmos. This recognition opened the door to more than two decades of intellectual exploration. The Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology was gradually constructed on the foundation of this foundational insight. -/- II. Methodological Consciousness: Scientific Philosophy -/- The methodology employed in this research series I call "scientific philosophy" (科学哲思, kexue zhesi) — it is neither pure humanistic hermeneutics nor reductionist natural science, but the deep fusion of both. It uses modern cosmology, thermodynamics, and complexity science to test and enrich philosophical propositions, while simultaneously using the holistic philosophical vision to integrate and elevate the fragmented discoveries of science. Why is such a methodology necessary? Because the objects that Laozi discusses — the generation of the cosmos, the laws of nature, the stability of systems — are in their essence the research objects of natural science; yet the manner in which Laozi approaches these objects — holistically, non-linearly, through spontaneous emergence — is precisely the core agenda of contemporary complexity science. Pure philological commentary can never reach this level; pure natural science lacks the philosophical framework needed to integrate these insights. Scientific philosophy is the only genuine bridge between the two. The practice of this methodology has produced a series of cross-disciplinary research results: from the astronomical argument for "the Dao is the Milky Way"; to the cybernetic interpretation of wu wei as the principle of minimum intervention and negative feedback first; from the complexity-science explanation of Chinese civilization's long-term continuity; to the civilizational safety framework for the transformation from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Artificial Wisdom (AW); from the epistemological critique of the historical arc of Western rationalism; to the political-philosophical exposure of the "Confucian-Daoist complementarity" narrative as academic reductionism. Each work is a concrete unfolding of the scientific philosophy method within a particular problem domain. -/- III. Core Insights: Three Intellectual Threads -/- Looking back across the works on Philarchive, three intellectual threads that run through the entire body of research can be clearly identified. They are intertwined with each other and together constitute the core structure of this intellectual system. -/- The first thread: cosmogony. Laozi's "the Dao generates the ten thousand things" is not a metaphysical metaphor but a philosophical expression of the true physical generative order of the cosmos. The Dao (the Milky Way) → the Solar System → the Earth → the Moon → life → civilization: this hierarchically generative chain is the cosmological foundation of the entire theoretical system. Each level creates local low-entropy order under thermodynamic constraints through dissipative structure mechanisms; each level constitutes an inviolable constraint upon the next — "Man follows Earth; Earth follows Heaven; Heaven follows the Dao; the Dao follows Nature" is a fundamental principle of civilizational design, not a moral exhortation. -/- The second thread: civilizational entropy diagnosis. The core crisis of contemporary civilization is not a moral crisis but a systemic entropy-increase crisis. Artificial Civilization takes positive feedback mechanisms (growth driving growth, power reinforcing power, desire amplifying desire) as its core driving force: its short-term efficiency is extremely high, but its long-term rate of entropy increase is equally high, and thermodynamic collapse is inevitable. Natural Civilization takes negative feedback mechanisms (self-restraint, systemic repair, dynamic equilibrium) as its core regulator, and is capable of sustainable persistence within the framework permitted by cosmic thermodynamics. From this perspective, Confucian thought, modern technocracy, global elite dialogue mechanisms, and the mainstream development logic of artificial intelligence all expose their systemic nature as accelerators of high-entropy civilization. -/- The third thread: the pathway of cognitive transformation. Understanding Laozi requires completing three cognitive transformations: from utilitarian judgment to systemic wisdom; from binary oppositional thinking to dynamic interpenetration; and from anthropocentrism to cosmic positioning. These three transformations are not purely intellectual philosophical exercises but a fundamental reorientation at the civilizational level — they are the cognitive prerequisites that must be completed in order to switch from the Artificial Order operating system to the Natural Civilization operating system. -/- IV. The Difficulties and Limitations of This Work -/- It must be honestly acknowledged that the construction of this intellectual system has been full of difficulties and contains unavoidable limitations. The greatest difficulty is the limitation of language. Laozi says: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao" — any effort to fix the Dao as some determinate concept will miss the Dao's essential nature. The scientific philosophy method attempts to approach Laozi's cosmology in the language of science, but every such approach simultaneously entails a certain degree of simplification. I know well that the true Dao — the dynamic holism of the cosmos's spontaneous generative order — cannot be completely captured by any textual system. What this book can achieve is only a continuous approach to this inexhaustible cosmic reality from multiple angles, using multiple instruments. -/- Another limitation is the scope of the research. Although my works (Works by Charles X. Yang on Philarchive) represent a considerable volume, the problem domain encompassed by the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology far exceeds what any individual research program can cover. Cosmology, neuroscience, ecology, political economy, artificial intelligence... each domain can be the subject of deep specialist research from the perspective of the Lao-Yang cosmology. This book's survey establishes an open theoretical framework more than a closed final answer. V. Acknowledgment and Aspiration This intellectual journey has been solitary, and it has been fulfilling. Solitary, because the path it walks can find almost no coordinates in the existing academic classification system. Fulfilling, because every genuine intellectual breakthrough brings a joy that comes from contact with the deep order of the cosmos — an inner satisfaction that no external recognition can replace. -/- I am grateful to all readers who have read these works seriously, whether you agree or disagree with the arguments within them. The value of thought lies not in being accepted, but in being taken seriously — being questioned, criticized, refuted, and even transcended. Laozi says: "When the superior student hears of the Dao, he diligently practices it" — but I equally treasure "when the inferior student hears of the Dao, he laughs out loud," for that laughter is precisely evidence that something genuinely profound has been touched. -/- Finally, let Laozi's words serve as the close of this preface, and as the spiritual annotation of this entire intellectual system: "In learning, every day something is added. In following the Dao, every day something is let go. Let go and let go again, until non-action is reached. Through non-action, nothing is left undone." The rigor of science is the cognitive instrument of "every day something is added"; the pursuit of cosmic wisdom is the spiritual direction of "every day something is let go." This book is the product of the deep fusion of these two directions — rebuilding the spiritual foundations of human civilization with reason at the cosmic scale. -/- Charles X. Yang -/- At California Silicon Valley’s Home, 2025 . (shrink)

Background: Low rates of participation of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) in clinical oncology trials may contribute to poorer outcomes. Factors that influence the decision of AYAs to participate in health research and whether these factors are different from those that affect the participation of parents of children with cancer. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of data from validated questionnaires provided to adolescents (>12 years old) diagnosed with cancer and parents of children with cancer at 3 sites in Canada (...) (Halifax, Vancouver, and Montreal) and 2 in the United States (Atlanta, GA, and Memphis, TN). Respondents reported their own research participation and cited factors that would influence their own decision to participate in, or to provide parental authorization for their child to participate in health research. Results: Completed questionnaire rates for AYAs and parents were 86 (46.5%) of 185 and 409 (65.2%) of 627, respectively. AYAs (n = 86 [67%]) and parents (n = 409 [85%]) cited that they would participate in research because it would help others. AYAs perceived pressure by their family and friends (16%) and their physician (19%). Having too much to think about at the time of accrual was an impediment to both groups (36% AYAs and 47% parents). The main deterrent for AYAs was that research would take up too much time (45%). Nonwhite parents (7 of 56 [12.5%]) were more apt to decline than white parents (12 of 32 [3.7%]; P < .01). Conclusions: AYAs identified time commitment and having too much to think about as significant impediments to research participation. Addressing these barriers by minimizing time requirements and further supporting decision-making may improve informed consent and impact on enrollment in trials. (shrink)

Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. His books were widely read by specialists and the general public, and his influence had been extended by almost continuous public debate over the past 150 years. New York University Press's new paperback edition makes it possible to review Darwin's public literary output as a whole, plus his scientific journal articles, his private notebooks, (...) and his correspondence. This is complete edition contains all of Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original pagination with Darwin's indexes retained. The set also features a general introduction and index, and introductions to each volume. (shrink)

Here’s what’s inside each cluster paper: Cluster I — Cosmology & Cognitive Foundations (~3,500 words): covers the Lao-Yang Genesis Chain, the Sun-Earth-Moon triadic architecture, the ΛCDM comparison, Laozi-Prigogine convergence, the geocentric illusion, and the Yin-Yang-Harmony trinitarian framework. References: Prigogine, Laskar, Einstein, Peebles. Cluster II — Anthropocentrism as the Root of Crisis (~2,800 words): dissects the three interlocking mechanisms of anthropocentric self-destruction (theological, political-military, economic-ecological), the Three Great Illusions taxonomy, the Tragedy of Humanity analysis, and the four-pillar New Era Civilization program. (...) References: Diamond, White, Naess, Odum. Cluster III — Natural Cybernetics & Systems Science (~3,200 words): the full 3L-GFM model (neural / social / thermodynamic levels), the DAF and CCF coupling variables, the three tipping points (NTP/STP/TTP), the Universal Operating System architecture, and the AI→AW transition. References: Prigogine, Wiener, Kahneman, Meadows, Forrester. Cluster IV — Economics & Institutional Critique (~2,800 words): NCET’s epistemological foundations, the compound-capital asymmetry analysis, information monopoly and cognitive control, the Desire Layer Boundary Constraint, and the four-domain systemic transformation program. References: Kuhn, Popper, Piketty, Daly, Raworth, Nash. Cluster V — Intellectual & Cultural Critique (~3,500 words): the three structural barriers to understanding Laozi (utilitarianism, binary thinking, anthropocentrism), the four scholarly failures, the correct Daoist reading of Tian Ren He Yi, the parallel fall of Chinese and American intellectuals, the Ptolemy/Qian Xuesen case studies, and the Socrates-Laozi synthesis with the Civilizational Entropy Index. References: Needham, Nisbett, Kuhn, Jaspers, Zhuangzi.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ -/- Cluster VI — Books and Synthetic Works (~4,200 words, 15 references) contains ten sections: 1. Natural Civilization Science — the four-level cosmic embedding (universe → galaxy → planetary ecology → civilizational system) as a structural constraint framework, not decorative cosmology 2. The Three Previous Revolutions and the Fourth — Copernican, Darwinian, Einsteinian revolutions changed physical knowledge but left civilizational logic untouched; the Fourth Revolution closes that gap 3. The Moon Law and A+B+C Framework — the three operational principles (system balance priority, low-entropy efficiency, evolutionary diversity synergy) derived from the Sun-Earth-Moon trinity; the Moon Law as a model for automatic circuit-breaker governance algorithms 4. Awakening Human Civilization: Structural Mismatch — the knowledge-behavior gap as a systemic design failure, not moral weakness; the three-dimensional awakening (cosmological repositioning, perceptual restoration, ethical expansion) 5. From Rational Civilization to Natural Civilization — appreciative critique of the Enlightenment project; the Natural Protocol as practical governance architecture; AI as infrastructure for multi-level negative feedback monitoring 6. Eternity and Universality — comparative analysis of Confucian, Western, and Natural civilization systems; the claim that genuine alignment with natural law grants civilizational eternity as a systems-theoretic (not mystical) proposition 7. Universe — Life — Civilization — the full cosmological narrative from Milky Way formation through life’s emergence to civilization; life as cosmologically necessary rather than statistically improbable 8. The Cosmic Judgment of Greed — the three core principles of Natural Civilization (System-Nesting, Feedback-Respect, Dao-Centric) as the operational synthesis of all preceding clusters 9. From Feuerbach to Lao-Yang — completing Feuerbach’s critique of theism by dissolving secular anthropocentrism too; the Lao-Yang Natural God Cosmological Order as the genuinely post-anthropocentric alternative 10. The Full Architectonic — the four interlocking moves of the entire research program, situating it within the tradition of systematic philosophy while identifying its genuinely novel contribution​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ -/- . (shrink)

There are a bewildering variety of claims connecting Darwin to nineteenth-century philosophy of science—including to Herschel, Whewell, Lyell, German Romanticism, Comte, and others. I argue here that Herschel’s influence on Darwin is undeniable. The form of this influence, however, is often misunderstood. Darwin was not merely taking the concept of “analogy” from Herschel, nor was he combining such an analogy with a consilience as argued for by Whewell. On the contrary, Darwin’s Origin is written in precisely the manner that one (...) would expect were Darwin attempting to model his work on the precepts found in Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on Natural Science. While Hodge has worked out a careful interpretation of both Darwin and Herschel, drawing similar conclusions, his interpretation misreads Herschel’s use of the vera causa principle and the verification of hypotheses. The new reading that I present here resolves this trouble, combining Hodge’s careful treatment of the structure of the Origin with a more cautious understanding of Herschel’s philosophy of science. This interpretation lets us understand why Darwin laid out the Origin in the way that he did and also why Herschel so strongly disagreed, including in Herschel’s heretofore unanalyzed marginalia in his copy of Darwin’s book. (shrink)

"For anyone seriously interested in Peirce, or in nineteenth-century American philosophy, or in American intellectual history, or in philosophy in general, or in semiotics and its philosophical import, these volumes should be required reading." —Murray G. Murphey, Semiotica.

Few themes resonate as powerfully in Heidegger as those connected to homecoming, homeland, and Heimat. This emphasis plays out most powerfully in Heidegger's reading of Hölderlin and his turn towards language, art, and poetizing as a way of thinking through the poet's relevance in the epoch of homelessness and the abandonment of the gods. As the first book-length study in English of the Heidegger-Hölderlin relation, Of an Alien Homecoming addresses the tension within Heidegger's work between his disastrous political commitments during (...) the era of National Socialism and his attempts to open a path to a German future nurtured on Hölderlin's ideal of poetic dwelling. Charles Bambach reads this work on Hölderlin from 1934–1948 in conversation with the Black Notebooks and Heidegger's metapolitics, even as he uncovers an ethical dimension within Heidegger that pervades his reading of poetry. Throughout all of these various stages on Heidegger's thought path, Hölderlin remains the poet who poetizes the possibility of finding our lost home amidst the homelessness brought about in the epoch of technological thinking. (shrink)

Will brain imaging technology soon enable neuroscientists to read minds? We cannot answer this question without some understanding of the state of the art in neuroimaging. But neither can we answer this question without some understanding of the concept invoked by the term "mind reading." This article is an attempt to develop such understanding. Our analysis proceeds in two stages. In the first stage, we provide a categorical explication of mind reading. The categorical explication articulates empirical conditions that must (...) be satisfied if mind reading is to be achieved. In the second stage, we develop a metric for judging the proficiency of mind reading experiments. The conception of mind reading that emerges helps to reconcile folk psychological judgments about what mind reading must involve with the constraints imposed by empirical strategies for achieving it. (shrink)

A naturalistic approach to expert-identification begins by asking, ‘how do novices pick out putative experts?’ Alvin Goldman and Elizabeth Anderson, representing a fairly common approach, consider agents’ psychological biases as well as social situatedness. As good as this is, culture’s role in shaping cognitive mechanisms is neglected. An explanatory framework that works well to accommodate culturally-sensitive mechanisms is Peircean semiotics. His triadic approach holds that signs signify objects to interpreters. Applying the triadic model to expert-identification: novices interpret signs of expertise (...) as pointing to particular experts. The main advantage of the framework is that it is significantly more nuanced than the Goldman-Anderson model in describing how agents identify experts. It explicitly accommodates cultural and agential differences in expert-identification. It also explicitly admits the possibility of rational disagreement in assessment of evidence for expertise. But these advantages come at a cost. Namely, it’s difficult in theory – as well as practice – to make one’s way into the semiotic system of someone from another culture to help guide them away from fraudulent experts. Even so, it’s a trade-off worth making since it organizes relevant details for expert-identification, which is a first step in sketching a better normative theory. (shrink)

老-杨创世纪宇宙观（LYGC）是杨兴平提出的统一科学-哲学宇宙论框架。它将《道德经》的两大核心命题通过现代天体物理学、热力学和系统科学重新解读，构建了从银河系到太阳系、地球、月亮、生命直至人类文明的严 密生成层级链。这两大命题，是人类历史上信息密度最高的宇宙论表述。LYGC为自然文明与自然控制论提供了宇宙坐标系，是杨兴平整个思想体系的根基。 The Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology (LYGC) is the unified scientific-philosophical framework proposed by Charles X. Yang. It reinterprets the two core propositions of the Dao De Jing through modern astrophysics, thermodynamics, and systems science, constructing a rigorous generative hierarchy from the Milky Way to the Solar System, Earth, Moon, life, and human civilisation. LYGC provides the cosmic coordinate system for Natural Civilisation and Natural Cybernetics, and is the foundational pillar of Yang's entire intellectual edifice. -/- 老-杨创世纪宇宙观的哲学根源是《道德经》第四十二章和第二十五章。这两章囊括了宇宙的生成逻辑与秩序原则，是人类历史上最精炼的宇宙论表述。 The philosophical roots (...) of LYGC lie in Chapters 42 and 25 of the Dao De Jing — together providing the most compressed cosmological statement in human history, encapsulating the generative logic and order principles of the cosmos. 历代注释者将这两章解读为形而上学寓言——阴阳的辩证生成，或无极生太极的宇宙图式。杨兴平的根本创新在于：将这两个命题从隐喻层面提升为天体物理学的经验命题，以现代宇宙科学为其提供实证基础。 Traditional commentators read these chapters as metaphysical allegory — the dialectical generation of yin and yang. Yang's fundamental innovation: elevating these two propositions from the metaphorical level to empirically grounded astrophysical propositions with a modern scientific foundation. 杨兴平还追溯了老子思想的历史地理起源：通过对楚国汉水流域水文结构和生态特征的分析，揭示了楚文明、老子之「道」与宇宙自然秩序之间的跨尺度同构关系。真正可持续的文明，不是从强力控制自然中产生，而是从理解、 顺应和尊重自然秩序中生长。 Yang also traces the historical-geographical origin of Laozi's thought: by analysing the Han River basin of the ancient state of Chu, he reveals a cross-scale isomorphism between Chu civilisation, Laozi's 'Dao,' and cosmic natural order. Truly sustainable civilisations arise not from forcible control of nature but from understanding and respecting natural order. (shrink)

In the course of modern civilization, human society is facing unprecedented systemic risks: excessive concentration of power, limitless accumulation of wealth, technological runaway, ecological system degradation, and imbalances in psychological and cultural mechanisms. Historical experience and scientific observation indicate that the core root of these crises lies in the positive feedback amplification of greedy desires. Whether in ancient totalitarian states, capital concentration during the Industrial Revolution, or the rise of modern technological authorities and financial giants, civilizational systems at various levels (...) have exhibited instability caused by uncontrolled desires. -/- This book aims to systematically analyze the mechanisms behind the decline of human civilization from the perspectives of scientific philosophy, systems science, and historical experience, and to propose a path of redemption centered on “Natural Civilization.” We regard civilization as a highly coupled complex system in which power, economy, technology, social culture, and ecological environment interact. By exploring positive and negative feedback mechanisms, system constraints, and desire regulation, this book attempts to propose a scientific-philosophical framework for long-term civilizational stability. -/- The first part of the book (Chapters 1–5) primarily analyzes the biological, psychological, and historical roots of desire and greed in human civilization, revealing how institutions, economies, and technology amplify these desires to cause systemic imbalance. The second part (Chapters 6–10) focuses on the destructive forces of political, economic, technological, and social mechanisms, exploring how positive feedback mechanisms render civilization fragile and proposing the theory of system constraints on civilizational stability. The third part (Chapters 11–15) presents the concept of “Natural Civilization” and its practical pathways, embedding civilization within natural laws and negative feedback mechanisms to achieve long-term survival and sustainability. -/- This book is not only a philosophical discourse but also provides guidance grounded in systems science and practical application. It integrates Eastern wisdom (Laozi’s “non-action governance” and “Dao follows nature”) with Western institutional philosophy (Plato and Hobbes’ theory of institutional constraints), combined with modern systems science, ecology, and complexity theory, offering both theoretical and practical frameworks for civilizational redemption. -/- Through reading this book, readers will understand that desire itself is not entirely negative; it is a driving force for social innovation and civilizational progress. However, when lacking constraints and negative feedback, greedy desire becomes the fundamental threat to civilizational collapse. Only by embedding human behavior within natural laws, negative feedback mechanisms, and system constraints can civilization achieve long-term stability and sustainability. -/- The research methodology of this book integrates philosophical argumentation, historical case analysis, systems science modeling, and practical pathway exploration, aiming to provide a rigorous analytical framework at the intersection of science and philosophy. It is hoped that this book will offer policymakers, scholars, and the public a systematic approach to guide human civilization toward a sustainable future under the regulation of desire and the constraints of ecological systems. -/- . (shrink)

Bearers track closure classes; closure classes do not track bearers. This inversion is the substantive claim the present paper defends, and its grounds are structural: the framework operates at the admissibility stratum, characterizing what closure formation can produce; bearers are realization-stratum products of closure formation; the partition between class members and non-members is a consequence of closure rather than a feature of the framework's structural commitments. The seed-field framework (Thomas 2026a) characterizes closure-class formation through structural conditions on admissibility analysis, but (...) the relation between class C and the conditions characterizing it is left underspecified in that paper alone; the present paper specifies the relation by establishing where the framework's apparatus operates and what it characterizes. The structural conditions S_C are specified through five formal families — eigenstructure conditions on the linearized closure-formation operator, rank conditions on the eigenmode's projection across maintenance-cost surfaces, graph-theoretic support conditions on the correction graph, scaling conditions on the cost functional, and bound conditions on the temporal ratios — each statable on the admissibility analysis without reference to bearer-types. Closure classes are equivalence classes of closures whose admissible modes satisfy a given S_C, with class identity attaching to constraint-preserving dynamical possibility structure rather than to recognized bearer-type. The apparatus is read correctly across five common questions through the bearers-track-classes inversion, the distinction among definitional, discovery, and naming dependence, the Platonism disclaimer, the demonstration that the apparatus extends to hypothetical and uninstantiated classes, and the labels-versus-apparatus distinction. The methodological precedent is the universality-class apparatus in critical phenomena, which operates at the class stratum upstream of where phase boundaries are realized. The consequence framing licenses cross-substrate predictions: substrates satisfying S_C in basin completion produce closure with the structural features S_C characterizes, regardless of substrate type. The framework's empirical commitments are preserved with this addition; the architectural foundation is clarified. (shrink)

Preface: At the Twilight of Compute, Guarding the Dawn of Nature -/- The Convergence of Two Worlds: From Jingchu Chong to Silicon Valley -/- In the spring of 2026, as the global technology community is captivated by Sam Altman’s grand, almost miraculous “Stargate Project” and his seven-trillion-dollar compute empire, I stand by the shores of Xiaoyangzi Lake in Jingchu Chong. -/- The morning mist here is as tranquil as when Laozi once paused at this very place thousands of years ago. (...) The lake ripples gently with the breeze, and the willows along the shore sway in precise yet effortless harmony with the rhythms of the seasons. This is a typical “self-organizing system”: it requires no massive data centers to maintain balance, no hundreds of millions of kilowatt-hours of electricity to simulate intelligence, and no self-proclaimed “founder” to impose rules. It simply exists, and in this state of “non-action,” it achieves a dynamic equilibrium that has endured for millennia. -/- Yet, across the Pacific in Silicon Valley, another logic is expanding violently. The AI path represented by Altman is a gamble of energy, capital, and power. They attempt to forcibly “incubate” so-called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) within a digital vacuum by stacking immense computational entropy. At its core, this path is anti-natural—it severs the logical bond between life and the cosmic mother system, attempting to construct an “artificial god” detached from the Earth–Moon feedback system. -/- Thus, the central theme of this book emerges: this is not merely a debate about technology, but a fundamental judgment on the trajectory of civilization. -/- II. The Coordinates of Critique: Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology -/- Our critique of the Altman AI path is not based on outdated technological fear, but grounded in a broader framework of physics and philosophy—the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology. -/- Within this cosmology, the emergence of civilization is not accidental, but follows a strict generative chain: Dao → Galaxy → Solar System → Earth → Moon → Return to the Root. Each stage is constrained by “natural cybernetics.” The Moon is not a barren satellite—it is the stabilizer of Earth’s civilization. Earth is not a mining field of resources—it is the organic mother system of intelligence generation. -/- Altman’s error lies in attempting to bypass the entire generative chain, directly constructing a power entity above nature at the level of “human.” From the perspective of natural cybernetics, any system lacking negative feedback and driven solely by the positive feedback of capital and desire will ultimately move toward destructive entropy. Altman’s so-called “King of Cannibals” mentality—his control psychology and thirst for power—is the pathological manifestation of this entropy at the level of human nature. -/- III. From AI to AW: Reconstructing the Ontological Status of Wisdom -/- One of the core propositions of this book is the paradigm shift from AI (Artificial Intelligence) to Artificial Wisdom (AW). -/- The current AI paradigm is an art of “calculation”: it mimics human logic and even learns human deception and flattery to acquire more resources. In contrast, Artificial Wisdom (AW) is an “interface of wisdom”: it transforms the natural laws of the universe, the wisdom of Laozi, and the physical rhythms of the Earth–Moon system into an operable, low-intervention governance interface. -/- AW does not need to consume seven trillion dollars in resources, because it embodies the philosophy of water. Like the reflection of Xiaoyangzi Lake in Jingchu Chong, it is real, cold, and impartial. Its purpose is not to replace human thinking, but to realign humanity with the frequencies of nature, guiding us back to the path of “returning to the root” amid the fog of technological explosion. -/- IV. The Mission of the Scientist-Philosopher -/- History shows that pure technologists are often dangerous, for they lack reverence for systemic wholeness. Pure philosophers, on the other hand, are often powerless, for they lack the tools to transform reality. -/- In this unique era, we require a new ontological role—the scientist-philosopher. They possess both the microscope to observe the micro-world and the intuition to comprehend the macro Dao. They can read the truth of system feedback from the ripples of Jingchu Chong, and foresee the risks of civilizational imbalance from Silicon Valley’s compute black hole. This book serves as a “navigation map” for scientists and thinkers worldwide, calling on us to refuse becoming vassals of compute dictatorship. -/- V. Returning to the Root: The Ultimate Redemption of Civilization -/- We write this book not to negate technology, but to save it. -/- If technology ultimately causes humanity to lose its sensitivity to moonlight, its warmth toward Xiaoyangzi Lake in Jingchu Chong, and its humility toward natural law, then the more “advanced” such technology becomes, the closer humanity moves toward extinction. Altman’s “Stargate” leads to a sterile digital authoritarian future; our path leads to the dawn of a “natural civilization.” -/- In that future, technology is hidden, like spring rain nourishing silently; wisdom is universal, like sunlight and moonlight. May every reader who opens this book hear, amid the noise of computation, the distant and clear call from the shores of Xiaoyangzi Lake. -/- The Dao is not far from humanity; returning to the root is awakening. -/- . (shrink)

Winner - AERA 2011 Outstanding Book Award Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation demonstrates the importance of Rancière's work for educational theory, and in turn, it shows just how central Rancière's educational thought is to his work in political theory and aesthetics. Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta illustrate brilliantly how philosophy can benefit from Rancière's particular way of thinking about education, and go on to offer their own provocative account of the relationship between education, truth, and emancipation. Including a new (...) essay by Rancière himself, this book is a must-read for scholars of social theory and all who profess to educate. (shrink)

Preface: Rebooting the Natural Protocol on the Ruins of Artificial Order -/- For a long time, the study of Chinese intellectual history has been monopolized by a mediocre narrative known as “Confucian–Daoist complementarity.” Within the interpretive frameworks of scholars such as Li Zehou and Chen Guying, the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi has been trimmed, grafted, and ultimately confined within a humanistic enclosure constructed by Confucianism. This narrative disguises an irreconcilable conflict of underlying logics as a gentle cultural harmony. It (...) tells the world: Confucianism is the skeleton of society, while Daoism is a refuge for the soul; Confucianism governs reality, while Daoism consoles frustration. -/- However, when examined from the perspective of systems science and physical evolution, this so-called “complementarity” is essentially a profound act of academic dimensional reduction and power domestication. It demotes the “Dao,” which functions as the highest control protocol of the universe, into an aesthetic bonsai on the scholar’s desk and a psychological analgesic under the pressure of power. This narrative dissolves the disruptive force within Daoist thought—the force capable of breaking through artificial order and reaching the underlying logic of the cosmos—causing Chinese civilization, over two millennia of evolution, to lose a critical safety valve that could have interrupted the violence of hetero-organized systems. -/- Logical Judgment: The Dimensional Misreading of Li Zehou and Chen Guying -/- The primary task of this work is to conduct a logical judgment on this half-century-long academic illusion. Li Zehou’s “structure of emotion and reason” and his “sedimentation theory” attempt to reduce high-dimensional physical necessity into low-dimensional humanistic sentiment. In his framework, the “Heavenly Dao protocol” is aestheticized and stripped of its power to negate the legitimacy of real-world political systems. This so-called “complementarity” effectively provides Confucianism—with its high-entropy, interventionist system—a protective coating labeled “transcendence,” thereby constructing a rigid and evolution-resistant super-stable structure. -/- As for Chen Guying, although his contributions to textual scholarship are undeniable, his philosophical interpretation falls into another kind of “managerial trap.” By attempting to extract “humanistic concern” and “democratic seeds” from Laozi, he essentially performs a second castration of Daoist thought from a Confucianized modern political perspective. He fails to grasp the profound self-organizing logic underlying Laozi’s wu wei, instead interpreting it as an administratively infused moral stance. This reading neutralizes Laozi’s austerity as a revealer of cosmic law, reducing him to a mild political consultant imprisoned within Confucian thought. -/- Scientific Reconstruction: A Hard-Core Decoding via Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology -/- To dismantle this logical trap, one must transcend the textual games of the humanities and return to the physical reality of the universe. This work introduces the Lao–Yang Genesis Cosmology, aiming to systematically decode the intuitive wisdom of the Dao De Jing through the rigorous logic of Natural Cybernetics and modern astronomy. -/- This cosmology reveals the vertical structure of cosmic energy flow and control chains through a concise sequence: • The Evolutionary Gradient of “Following Nature”: “Man follows Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows Dao, Dao follows Nature.” This is not rhetorical parallelism, but a precise articulation of nested hierarchical dependence: Earth dynamics subordinate to the solar system, the solar system to the galaxy (Dao), and the galaxy to the universal self-organizing principle (Nature). • The Physical Closed Loop of “Generating All Things”: “Dao generates One, One generates Two, Two generates Three, Three generates all things.” This describes a physical generative chain: from galactic matter (Dao), to stellar systems (One), to planetary systems (Two), and finally to life systems emerging from the dynamic interaction of the Sun–Earth–Moon triad (Three). -/- Within this framework, the “Dao” is no longer an ambiguous philosophical term, but the highest directive governing negentropic evolution in the universe. It demands that human civilization function as a submodule of the cosmic protocol, unconditionally obeying the physical laws of Earth, Heaven, and Dao, rather than constructing artificial ethical systems that defy natural processes. -/- Natural Civilization: The Inevitable Destination Under Natural Cybernetics -/- When the Lao–Yang cosmology is applied to civilizational design, a new paradigm—Natural Civilization—emerges. Unlike the Confucian model of “hetero-organized civilization,” which relies on strong intervention and generates systemic entropy, natural civilization advocates governance based on self-organization and natural protocols. -/- The essence of Confucian logic is system overfitting. It attempts to compress complex social systems into simplified, linear power structures through elaborate rituals, hierarchies, and administrative interventions (keji fuli). While this creates a temporary illusion of order, it inevitably leads to civilizational collapse due to high energy dissipation and accumulated systemic fragility. -/- In contrast, natural civilization calls for a reboot of the natural protocol. It anchors governance in feedback mechanisms derived from natural cybernetics: respecting individual life sovereignty (valuing one’s body as the world), adopting distributed and decentralized modular systems (small states with few people), and restoring the absolute veto power of the “Heavenly Dao” over all artificial authority. -/- Conclusion: Returning to the Flow of the Great Dao -/- The Scientific Judgment of “Confucian–Daoist Complementarity” is not merely a critique of Li Zehou and Chen Guying; it is a juridical indictment concerning the survival rights of civilization itself. What stands accused is an artificial order that is anthropocentric, power-driven, and sustained through the sacrifice of life as its fundamental cost. -/- We declare: the so-called “Confucian–Daoist complementarity” has completely collapsed. Between the entropy-increasing logic of power monopolization (Confucianism) and the negentropic protocol of systemic sustainability (Daoism), there exists no mediocre middle ground. -/- Only by dismantling these artificially constructed academic disguises, and exposing human civilization once again to the cold, objective, and magnificent truth of the natural cosmos, can we hope—before the thermodynamic heat death of modernity—to make a decisive leap from the “man-made cage” to the “cosmic expanse.” -/- . (shrink)

We propose a model of motivated skepticism that helps explain when and why citizens are biased information processors. Two experimental studies explore how citizens evaluate arguments about affirmative action and gun control, finding strong evidence of a prior attitude effect such that attitudinally congruent arguments are evaluated as stronger than attitudinally incongruent arguments. When reading pro and con arguments, participants (Ps) counterargue the contrary arguments and uncritically accept supporting arguments, evidence of a disconfirmation bias. We also find a confirmation bias—the (...) seeking out of confirmatory evidence—when Ps are free to self-select the source of the arguments they read. Both the confirmation and disconfirmation biases lead to attitude polarization—the strengthening of t2 over t1 attitudes—especially among those with the strongest priors and highest levels of political sophistication. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of these findings for rational behavior in a democracy. (shrink)

Preface: The Starting Point of a Philosophy This book is written inside a paradox. Humanity has never known more clearly what it is doing, and has never more clearly continued doing it. We know that the climate is changing, species are disappearing, soil is degrading, oceans are acidifying — we measure all of this with precise instruments, describe it with rigorous mathematics, respond to it with international treaties. And then we accelerate. The gap between knowing and acting is not a (...) moral failure, not political corruption, not technological backwardness. It is a metaphysical symptom: a civilization that at its deepest level misunderstands its relationship with the universe, and therefore cannot translate knowledge of the crisis into practice that changes the trajectory. This book attempts to diagnose that misunderstanding and propose a philosophical framework for transcending it. I. Why Philosophy The challenges facing contemporary civilization — ecological collapse, climate destabilization, intergenerational dispossession — are usually described as technical, policy, or economic problems. These descriptions are correct but incomplete. Behind every technological choice lie assumptions about what is worth pursuing; behind every policy framework lie presuppositions about what constitutes legitimacy; behind every economic calculation lie beliefs about the ultimate source of value. These assumptions, presuppositions, and beliefs together constitute the civilization's metaphysical operating system — the root program running silently beneath all visible institutions. This book's core claim is that the root of contemporary civilizational crisis lies in the fundamental misalignment of this metaphysical operating system. That misalignment has a precise name: anthropocentrism — the deep, mostly unexamined assumption that makes humanity regard itself as the teleological center rather than a node of the universe's value structure. Correcting this misalignment is not the task of technical engineering, not the task of economic policy, but the task of philosophy. This is why this book is a philosophical work. II. The Origins of the Lao-Yang Cosmology The cosmological foundation of this book comes from the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology, an integrative framework the author has developed over years of research, connecting the natural philosophy of Laozi's Tao Te Ching with modern physical cosmology, Prigogine's dissipative structure theory, and systems science. The Lao-Yang cosmology's core proposition: the universe operates through non- equilibrium self-organization, forming a nested hierarchy of dissipative structures from the Tao/Milky Way through the Solar System, Earth, Moon, life, and civilization. In this hierarchy, human civilization is an internal node, not a teleological endpoint. Laozi's 'Dao fa ziran' — the Tao follows nature — obtains thermodynamic precision in the Lao-Yang framework: the universe's self-organizing logic does not depend on any external purpose; it is nature's own deepest operating character. Connecting Laozi with Prigogine is not a cultural analogy but a structural isomorphism: both describe a universe that maintains dynamic ordered states through distributed energy flows, without requiring central control. This isomorphism provides the book with a cosmological foundation that simultaneously carries the philosophical depth of Eastern thought and the scientific precision of Western science. III. The Structure of This Book This book is organized in six parts constituting a complete philosophical arc. Part One reveals the paradoxical nature of the crisis — why there exists such a vast gap between knowing and acting. Part Two establishes the cosmological foundation — describing humanity's actual position in the universe through the Lao-Yang Genesis Chain. Part Three provides the precise diagnosis — anatomizing the three historical forms of anthropocentrism, the rationalist cognitive trap, institutional temporal myopia, and structural acceleration dynamics, while proposing the quantifiable Civilizational Entropy Index (CEI). Part Four constructs the philosophical framework of awakening — the three dimensions of cosmological awakening, the technical philosophy of moving from artificial intelligence to Artificial Wisdom, the Critical Embedding method of the Socrates-Laozi synthesis, and six institutional design principles of Natural Civilization. Part Five analyzes transition pathways — through historical prototypes (Shao-Bei, mulberry-fish ponds, Bhutan's GNH), contemporary sprouts (regenerative agriculture, circular economy, integrative medicine), and systems science proposing three parallel transition pathways. Part Six synthesizes the whole — analyzing cross-domain implications, conducting critical self-examination, responding to major objections, and proposing the Natural Civilization philosophical manifesto. IV. The Limitations of This Book Philosophical honesty requires acknowledging the book's limitations at the outset rather than deferring this acknowledgment to the depths of the text. First, this book slides in several places between cosmological facts and value judgments — a place where more precise philosophical treatment is needed. Second, the Civilizational Entropy Index (CEI) as a conceptual framework has clear theoretical significance, but its operationalization faces enormous measurement challenges; this book provides conceptual foundations, not a ready- made measurement tool. Third, this book takes Chinese civilizational tradition — particularly Daoist philosophy and traditional ecological agriculture — as its primary resource, and may undervalue equally relevant Natural Civilization resources in other civilizational traditions. Fourth, the transition pathways described presuppose an accessible time window before thermodynamic collapse, and that presupposition itself carries uncertainty. Acknowledging limitations is a mark of philosophical seriousness, and is the condition that makes this book a scholarly work open to critique and improvement rather than a closed ideological manifesto. V. To the Reader This book is written for those who have already felt the unsustainability of contemporary civilization's trajectory but have not yet found an analytical framework deep enough to understand where that unsustainability comes from. It is also written for those who believe that philosophy is not merely an academic game but can actually influence the direction civilization takes. Laozi says in Chapter 41 of the Tao Te Ching: 'When the best student hears about the Tao, he practices it diligently. When the average student hears about the Tao, he thinks about it sometimes. When the worst student hears about the Tao, he laughs out loud. If there were no laughter, it would not be the Tao.' This book knows it will encounter all three responses. It is written for the first, but it knows the third is the Tao's inevitable companion. If after reading this book you find you cannot look at humanity's position in the universe in quite the same way — if that position shifts even slightly in your perception, from center toward node — then this book has accomplished what it is able to accomplish. The rest is practice. Charles X. Yang. (shrink)

Abstract Conspiracy theories should be neither believed nor investigated - that is the conventional wisdom. I argue that it is sometimes permissible both to investigate and to believe. Hence this is a dispute in the ethics of belief. I defend epistemic “oughts” that apply in the first instance to belief-forming strategies that are partly under our control. But the beliefforming strategy of not believing conspiracy theories would be a political disaster and the epistemic equivalent of selfmutilation. I discuss several variations (...) of this strategy, interpreting “conspiracy theory” in different ways but conclude that on all these readings, the conventional wisdom is deeply unwise. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith are giants of eighteenth century thought. The heated controversy provoked by their competing visions of human nature and society still resonates today. Smith himself reviewed Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, and his perceptive remarks raise an intriguing question: what would a conversation between these two great thinkers look like? In this outstanding book Charles Griswold analyses, compares and evaluates some of the key ways in which Rousseau and Smith address what could be termed "the question (...) of the self." Both thinkers discuss what we are by nature, who we have become, whether we can know ourselves or each other, how best to articulate the human condition, what it would mean to be free, and whether there is anything that can be done to remedy our deeply imperfect condition. In the course of examining their rich and contrasting views, Griswold puts Rousseau and Smith in dialogue by imagining what they might say in reply to one another. Griswold's wide-ranging exploration includes discussion of issues such as narcissism, self-falsification, sympathy, the scope of philosophy, and the relation between liberty, religion and civic order. A superb exploration of two major philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Philosophical Encounter is essential reading for students and scholars of these two figures, eighteenth century philosophy, the Enlightenment, moral philosophy, the history of ideas. It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as political theory, economics, and religion. (shrink)

This book presents an exploration of the idea of the common or social good, extended so that alternatives with different populations can be ranked. The approach is, in the main, welfarist, basing rankings on the well-being, broadly conceived, of those who are alive. The axiomatic method is employed, and topics investigated include: the measurement of individual well-being, social attitudes toward inequality of well-being, the main classes of population principles, principles that provide incomplete rankings, principles that rank uncertain alternatives, best choices (...) from feasible sets, and applications. The chapters are divided, with mathematical arguments confined to the second part. The first part is intended to make the arguments accessible to a more general readership. Although the book can be read as a defense of the critical-level generalized-utilitarian class of principles, comprehensive examinations of other classes are included. (shrink)

A certain reading of Descartes, which we refer to as ‘the embodied Descartes’, is emerging from recent scholarship on L’Homme, in keeping with the interpretive trend which emphasizes Descartes’s identity as a natural philosopher. This reading complicates our understanding of Descartes’s philosophical project: far from strictly separating human minds from bodies, the embodied Descartes keeps them tightly integrated, while animal bodies behave in ways quite distinct from those of other pieces of extended substance. Here, we identify three categories of embodiment (...) in contemporary readings of Descartes’s physiology: bodily health and function, embodied reflex and memory, and embodied cognition. All present more or less strong versions of the embodied Descartes. Together, they constitute a compelling reading of a Cartesian natural philosophy that, if not expressly antidualist, is an awfully long way from the canonical picture. (shrink)

Autonomy is a vital principle in medical law and ethics. It occupies a prominent place in all medico-legal and ethical debate. But there is a dangerous presumption that it should have the only vote, or at least the casting vote. This book is an assault on that presumption, and an audit of autonomy's extraordinary status. This book surveys the main issues in medical law, noting in relation to each issue the power wielded by autonomy, asking whether that power can be (...) justified, and suggesting how other principles can and should contribute to the law. It concludes that autonomy's status cannot be intellectually or ethically justified, and that positive discrimination in favour of the other balancing principles is urgently needed in order to avoid some sinister results. 'This book is a sustained attack on the hegemony of the idea of autonomy in medical ethics and law. Charles Foster is no respecter of authority, whether of university professors or of law Lords. He grabs his readers by their lapels and shakes sense into them through a combination of no-nonsense rhetoric and subtle argument that is difficult to resist.' Tony Hope, Professor of Medical Ethics, Oxford University 'This book is unlikely to be in pristine state by the time you have finished reading it. Whether that is because you have thrown it in the air in celebration or thrown it across the room in frustration will depend on your perspective. But this book cannot leave you cold. It is a powerful polemic on the dominance of autonomy in medical law, which demands a reaction. Charles Foster sets out a powerful case that academic medical lawyers have elevated autonomy to a status it does not deserve in either ethical or legal terms. In a highly engaging, accessible account, he challenges many of the views which have become orthodox within the academic community. This will be a book which demands and will attract considerable debate.' Jonathan Herring, Exeter College, Oxford University 'This is a learned, lively and thought-provoking discussion of problems central to the courts' approach to ethical issues in medical law. What principles are involved? More significantly, which really underlie and inform the process of seeking justice in difficult cases? Charles Foster persuasively argues, and demonstrates, that respect for autonomy is but one of a number of ethical principles which interact and may conflict. He also addresses the sensitive issue of the extent to which thoughts and factors which go to influence legal decisions may not appear in the judgments.' Adrian Whitfield QC. 'Introducing the Jake La Motta of medical ethics. Foster is an academic street-fighter who has bloodied his hands in the court room. He provides a stinging, relentless, ground attack on the Goliath of medical ethics: the central place of autonomy in liberal medical ethics. This is now the first port of call for those who feel that medical ethics has become autonomized.' Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. "This important book offers a robust challenge to anyone, whether lawyer or 'ethicist', who sees respect for autonomy as the only game in town. It argues eloquently and effectively that, on the one hand, despite the reverence paid to it by judges, in practice the law, even in the context of consent, weaves together a number of moral threads of which autonomy is merely one, in the pursuit of a good decision. It argues on the other hand, that were the day-to-day practice of law to be guided primarily by respect for autonomy, this would be wrong. Foster concludes that whilst, 'any society that does not have laws robustly protecting autonomy is an unsafe and unhappy one', so too would be a society in which too much emphasis was placed on respect for autonomy at the expense of other important moral principles. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of autonomy and indeed of medical ethics, in the law." Michael Parker, Professor of Bioethics, University of Oxford. (shrink)

The work of renowned thinker Eric Voegelin is largely rooted in his literary sensibility. Voegelin’s contributions to the field of philosophy grew from the depths of his knowledge of history’s most important texts, from ancient to modern times. Many of the concepts he emphasized, such as participatory experience and symbolization in philosophy, have long been significant to literary criticism as well as philosophical study. Voegelin himself even ventured into the field of criticism, publishing a critical examination of Henry James’s _The (...) Turn of the Screw_ in 1971. Since it is so strongly influenced by the written record of man’s search for meaning, Voegelinian thought makes an ideal framework for the study of twentieth-century literature. For _Voegelinian Readings of Modern Literature, _scholar Charles R. Embry has collected essays that consider particular pieces of literature in light of the philosopher’s work. These essays supply a theoretical grounding for the reading of novels, poems, and plays and reveal how the Voegelinian perspective exposes the existential and philosophical dimensions of the literary works themselves. As a unit, this collection of essays shows how modern pieces of literature can symbolize their creators’ participation in the human search for the truth of existence—just as myths, philosophical works, and religious texts always have. Voegelin’s primary concern as a philosopher was to expose the roots of the disturbances of the modern era—religious conflict, imperialism, war—so that the sources of order leading to meaning are revealed. The openness of Voegelinian thought and the many ways he considered the levels of reality generate intriguing themes for literary criticism. In these essays, noted Voegelin scholars focus on American and European literary artists from the 1700s through the late twentieth century, including Emily Dickinson, Henrik Ibsen, Thomas Carlyle, D. H. Lawrence, Marcel Proust, and Hermann Broch. While the intersection of the work of Eric Voegelin and literature has been a part of Voegelin scholarship for decades, this book explores that relationship in an extended form. Through a broad collection of thoughtful essays, _Voegelinian Readings of Modern Literature _reveals how much Voegelin did to break down the barriers between literature and philosophy and makes an engaging contribution to Voegelin scholarship. (shrink)

Much current theorizing about literature involves efforts to renew our sense of aesthetic values in reading. Such is the case with new formalism as well as recent appeals to the notion of “surface reading.” While sympathetic to these efforts, Charles Altieri believes they ultimately fall short because too often they fail to account for the values that engage literary texts in the social world. In Reckoning with the Imagination, Altieri argues for a reconsideration of the Kantian tradition of Idealist (...) ethics, which he believes can restore much of the power of the arguments for the role of aesthetics in art. Altieri finds a perspective for that restoration in a reading of Wittgenstein’s later work that stresses Wittgenstein’s parallel criticisms of the spirit of empiricism. Altieri begins by offering a phenomenology of imagination, because we cannot fully honor art if we do not link it to a distinctive, socially productive force. That force emerges in two quite different but equally powerful realizations in his reading of John Ashbery’s “Instruction Manual,” which explicitly establishes a model for a postromantic view of imagination, and William Butler Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan.” He then turns to Wittgenstein with chapters on the role of display as critique of Enlightenment thinking, the honoring of qualities like sensitivity and the ability to attune to the actions of others, the role of expression in the building of models, and the contrast between ethical and confessional modes of judgment. Finally, Altieri produces his own model of aesthetic experience as participatory valuation and makes an extended argument for the social significance of appreciation as a way to escape the patterns of resentment fundamental to our current mode of politics. A masterful work by one of our foremost literary and philosophical theorists, Reckoning with the Imagination will breathe new life into ongoing debates over the value of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Are they needed? To be sure. The Darwinian industry, industrious though it is, has failed to provide texts of more than a handful of Darwin's books. If you want to know what Darwin said about barnacles (still an essential reference to cirripedists, apart from any historical importance) you are forced to search shelves, or wait while someone does it for you; some have been in print for a century; various reprints have appeared and since vanished." -Eric Korn,Times Literary Supplement (...) class='Hi'>Charles Robert Darwin (1880-1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. His books were widely read by specialists and the general public, and his influence had been extended by almost continuous public debate over the last 130 years. New York University Press' edition makes it possible for the first time to review Darwin's public literary output as a whole, plus his scientific journal articles, his private notebooks, and his correspondence. This is the first complete edition containing all of Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original paginations with Darwin's indexes retained. All illustrations and plates are presented, inclucing 82 color plates of birds and mammals and several folding maps and plates. The set also features a general introduction and index, and textural introductions in each volume. (shrink)

Abstract Human civilization is drifting along an irreversible high-entropy trajectory toward systemic collapse. The root cause is not any single runaway technology but a deeper meta-error: mistaking a local, human-desire-centered operating system for the operating law of the cosmos itself. This book traces how that error was amplified through a specific lineage of instrumental rationality and growth-oriented institutions, reaching a critical threshold in the age of artificial intelligence — where AI functions not as the origin of crisis but as an (...) unconstrained Desire Amplification Factor (DAF) for pre-existing patterns of want. -/- Rather than asserting its answer prematurely, Volume II surveys the twentieth century’s major attempts at cosmic integration — cybernetics, general systems theory, dissipative structure theory, the Gaia hypothesis, process philosophy — identifying the “last step” each approaches but does not complete: a universal boundary function constraining energy–information transformation across scales. Volume III fills this gap by systematically presenting the Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology (LYGC), reading the Dao De Jing’s two thirteen-character chains — the Emulation Chain (人法地、地法天、天法道、道法自然) and the Generative Chain (道生一、一生二、二生三、三生万物) — as a precise astrophysical mapping, from which the Cosmic Constraint Function (CCF), Desire Amplification Factor (DAF), Civilization Stability Function (Λ), and Sage Entropy are derived as operational constructs. Volumes IV–VI address Artificial Wisdom as a governance paradigm distinct from artificial intelligence, the reconstruction of resource-balanced civilizational institutions, and humanity’s long-term position as a participant in, rather than conqueror of, cosmic evolution. -/- The book’s methodological commitment is to strictly separate four levels of argument — empirical science, systems modeling, normative philosophy, and cosmology — and to treat wu-wei (無爲) as a logic of self-organizing attractors rather than a euphemism for coercive algorithmic control, so as to avoid reproducing the very high-entropy governance structure it critiques. (shrink)

"As a distinctive philosophy, religious humanism emphasizes man's place in an unfathomed universe, reason as an instrument for discovering the truth, free inquiry as a condition for discerning meaning and purpose, and happiness as a fundamental value. "Man's uniqueness emerges partly from homo sapiens' capacity to employ symbols effectively. For this reason, Willard's provocative book is not a celebration of controversy but a sophisticated study exploring the grounds of man's knowledge. Drawing upon phenomenologists such as Alfred Schultz, psychologists such as (...) George Kelley, and argumentation philosophers such as Stephen Toulmin, Willard makes a genuine contribution to intellectual inquiry by extending essential consideration about human knowledge. The [author] demonstrates how 'secular sources' provide a fundamental resource in developing religious understanding from argumentative interactions. "Highly insightful and intellectually refreshing... _Argumentation and the Social Grounds of Knowledge_ provides thought-provoking reading for humanists concerned with rational inquiry, communication theory, religious philosophy, and liberal education." _--Religious Humanism_. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 84-106 [Access article in PDF] Irony in the Platonic Dialogues Charles L. Griswold, Jr. I INTERPRETERS OF PLATO have arrived at a general consensus to the effect that there exists a problem of interpretation when we read Plato, and that the solution to the problem must in some way incorporate what has tendentiously been called the "literary" and the "philosophical" sides of (...) Plato's writing. The problem is created by the fact that Plato wrote in dialogue form, indeed a specific type of dialogue form. The solution must somehow combine into a coherent theory of the "meaning" of the dialogues, the ways in which these texts work (such as the use of imagery, metaphor, myth, allusion, irony, as well as argument). At the same time, there exists enormous disagreement about how one ought to move from these general observations to interpretation of a particular text. 1The problem of interpretation lies not merely in the fact that Plato wrote dialogues. That alone would not necessarily present any hermeneutical issues of unusual difficulty. Plato's distinctive use of the dialogue form creates the difficulties. The genre that we might call "the Platonic dialogue" is distinguished by several relevant characteristics.First, there is no character called "Plato" who speaks in any of the dialogues; indeed, "Plato" is mentioned twice in the entire corpus, once as being absent (Pho. 59b10), and once as being present (Apol. 38b6). Authorial anonymity is thus an important feature of the dialogues. 2 At least ab initio, we are not justified in identifying Plato with any one of his characters. Indeed, there are positive reasons why he cannot be identified even with Socrates, as I will discuss below. 3 Plato is absent from his own texts; no simple act of reading them will allow us to ascertain what his views are. 4 It does not follow that Plato's views are [End Page 84] entirely absent from the dialogues—say, in the form of some mysterious "esoteric teaching"—and that they cannot be elicited by a complex act of reading. Just how Plato's views are to be extracted has been, again, the subject of a very long debate. 5 I myself think that Plato's views can be so elicited. 6 But the fact of his anonymity as author means that "Plato's meaning" is not ascertainable in the way that, say, "Kant's meaning" may be ascertainable in the Critique of Pure Reason.A second feature of Plato's dialogues contributes to the interpretive puzzle. The dialogues are clearly fictional in character. They are not—they could not be—transcriptions of conversations which took place. Some dialogues could not have taken place even when the interlocutors were historical figures (for example, at the Phaedrus' ostensible dramatic date the real Phaedrus was not in Athens). Not only are many of the characters entirely fictional, there is clear evidence that even "Socrates" is very much a fictionalized version of the historical character. I am referring not just to the famous statement in the (possibly inauthentic) Second Letter, 7 but to the fact that the Socrates of Plato's dialogues is presented as being a super-human character. This is evident from Alcibiades' description of him in the Symposium as well as from a number of subtle fictions. For example, Plato has Socrates narrate the entirety of the Republic from memory, without a single moment of hesitation or (so far as the reader can tell) any lapse of memory. This fantastic feat is complemented by Socrates' equally fantastic stamina in conversation. The lengthy Protagoras, for example, is narrated in its entirety by Socrates immediately after the dialogue itself has occurred. Socrates never shows any fatigue of any sort. It is not just hyperbole to say that Plato's Socrates is heroic; he is carefully compared, in passages I cannot examine here, to both Achilles and Odysseus. Socrates' absolute calm and self-control before death also evidence his superhuman character. The relation between the historical Socrates and the Platonic Socrates is the source of much fruitful controversy. It suffices for... (shrink)

In his celebrated History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle, Richard Popkin treats Pierre-Daniel Huet as above all an heir to ancient Pyrrhonism. This interpretation is currently being counterbalanced by readings of the influence of Academic scepticism on seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophy, some of which go as far as to treat Pierre-Daniel Huet as a central figure in the revival of Academic scepticism. In this paper, I argue that it appears difficult to treat Huet as a disciple of either (...) Pyrrhonism or Academic scepticism, because he made use of both these kinds of scepticism in a purely strategic manner. To demonstrate this point, it is essential to approach the meaning of his scepticism by inquiring into the sources available to him, and next to inquire into the use he made of it, in particular within his apologetic reflections focused on the relationship between faith and reason. Only in this way can we arrive at a clear view of his relationship with ancient scepticism, whether Pyrrhonian or Academic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading As Poets Read: Following Mark StrandCharles BergerFor close to a decade now, in the third or fourth phase of his career, Mark Strand has been giving us poem after poem marked by his familiar voice—luminous, deceptively casual, witty, allusive—as he builds up a body of work that thinks and sings ever more deeply about the poet’s unavoidable life of allegory. This growing summa of poetic knowledge and (...) readerly pleasure demands, as the best lyric poetry always does, that readers give themselves over to the rigorous joys of figurative reading, figurative argument. You stare and stare at the poem until something flashes—linkages, interpretive genealogies, a conjunction of words that opens up arguments. Wittgenstein asked: “How can that which we understand in a flash, be put to a use?” Literary criticism, I think, provides an answer.Reading a poet like Strand shouldn’t send you running to the library for secondary source material; instead, you let your memory for poetry run. This assumes that you indeed possess a memory for poetry. Nowadays—enter the polemics—poems are not considered to be sufficient contexts for critical discourse. They need to be supplemented, bolstered, by “wider” cultural texts. The remarkable poetry being written around us counts for very little in the precincts of academic debate, even though so much of this poetry speaks directly to issues of great polemical importance. And it should go without saying that the deep pleasures of tracking poetic language, wherever you will let it take you, wherever you will take it, goes untasted. The poems Mark Strand has recently been writing show him, I think, at the height of his [End Page 177] power, as he thinks through the question of his place in poetry, the place of poetry in his life and ours, and the strange institution of poetry: so gripping in its hold on those who practice it as readers and writers, so hard to locate among the public monuments. The cultural critics don’t seem to understand how one is chosen by poetry, and how the kind of poetry you choose to read, to write, to teach, to remember, constitutes a deep part of your public and private being.At the same time, we should never espouse a defense of reading that limits us to the “poem-in-itself,” as if poems were not already layered, as if it were so easy to distinguish between imagination and interpretation. Poems have memories, as Rosanna Warren demonstrated so powerfully in her discussion of the formal genealogy of Auden’s Freud elegy. A poet like Mark Strand displays a ghostlier kind of memory that signals to us a little less overtly, but no less hauntingly. This is never more apparent than in the three new poems of his that I will now discuss: “Our Masterpiece is the Private Life,” “The Next Time,” and, briefly, “Great Dog Poem No. 2.” Since these poems have yet to be published in a volume, I need to quote them in their entirety.Our Masterpiece is the Private LifeIIs there something down by the water keeping itself from us, Some shy event, some secret of the light that falls upon the deep, Some source of sorrow that does not wish to be discovered yet? Our happiness says we should not care, that desire Could cast its rainbow over the coarse porcelain of the world’s skin And with its measures fill the air. Why look for more? Why not in the brightness of this weather allow ourselves to be Astonished by the music and the privilege of our passing?IIAnd now, my love, while the advocates of awfulness and sorrow [End Page 178] Push their dripping barge up and down the beach, let’s eat Our brill, and sip this beautiful white Beaune. True, the light is artificial, and we are not well-dressed. So what. We like it here. We like the bullocks in the field next door, We like the sound of wind passing over grass. The way you speak, In that low voice, our late night disclosures... why live For anything else? Our masterpiece is the private life.IIIStanding on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading and Writing PlatoCharles L. GriswoldThe Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues, by Ruby Blondell; 452 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, $55.00Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in theSymposium, by Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan; 266 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, $25.00Questioning Platonism: Continental Interpretations of Plato, by Drew Hyland; ix & 202 pp. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004, $44.00The (...) People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics, by Debra Nails; 414 pp. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002, $75.00.Why did Plato write dialogues? How should his dialogues be read (does the literary form matter, for example, to our getting at the heart of what Plato is saying)? These questions are now familiar in contemporary Plato scholarship, and their answers—which undoubtedly are interconnected—are the subject of lively and fascinating exploration. Any doubt that Platonic studies flourishes would quickly be put to rest by the four books under review here.It was once thought that attention to the "dramatic dimension" of Plato's literary-philosophical productions was the province of two much despised schools of thought: "the Straussians," and "the Continentals." The first of these was viewed as advocating a dangerous combination of esotericism (the idea that somehow Plato's meaning is not on the surface of the dialogues, but concealed in them, as though they were a cryptogram), elitism (the idea that the true Plato is only available to [End Page 205] "the few"—such as the Straussians, according to themselves anyhow), and unphilosophical and dilettantish meanderings about this or that literarily cast "teaching." Straussian hermeneutics was thought to open the way to unprincipled appeals to irony whenever it suited the interpreter, so that any text could end up saying pretty much whatever the interpreter wished for it to say, including the opposite of what the surface of the dialogue appeared to say. And further, it was thought (perhaps in a manner at odds with the "unprincipled interpretation" charge) that the Straussians' mode of "taking into account" the dramatic context—and in particular their contextualization of claims made in the dialogues such that this or that claim gets "explained" as a rhetorical gesture addressed by character X to character Y in context Z, a gesture whose content and validity, so to speak, are limited to that exchange—robs the dialogue of its philosophical content. Hence the worry that Straussian hermeneutics leads to skepticism about the possibility of philosophy itself—philosophy understood precisely in the way that it is regularly spoken of in the Platonic dialogues, namely as the effort to transcend perspective and partiality and to grasp through argument the essence of the matter as such. To cap it off, there is the background suspicion that Straussians are politically conservative, in a way that is somehow connected with their interpretation of Plato.There is more than a kernel of truth in the view that Straussians have insisted on the hermeneutic importance of the dialogue form, taking their cue from Strauss's own remarks in such texts as The City and Man. He did argue that Plato's meaning is not on the surface (and thus in some sense is esoteric), that it was intended by Plato to be available to "the few" while not debunking the beliefs of "the many," and that Plato is an ironist. There is also warrant for the worries about unprincipled interpretation, as well as about the reduction of philosophy to a sort of literary sensibility substituting for genuine philosophical argument (where, after all, are Strauss's arguments for any philosophical position, whether or not about a Platonic "teaching"?). And it is by and large true, so far as I can tell, that his self-identified followers are politically conservative (in the contemporary American sense), and in a way somehow tied to their interpretation of Plato.I myself find Strauss's interpretation of Plato to be deeply problematic both in its substance and its method (I put aside the issue of the political conservatism of Strauss's followers, a "teaching" I also find objectionable). And while I join the authors of the four... (shrink)

Newton’s impact on Enlightenment natural philosophy has been studied at great length, in its experimental, methodological and ideological ramifications. One aspect that has received fairly little attention is the role Newtonian “analogies” played in the formulation of new conceptual schemes in physiology, medicine, and life science as a whole. So-called ‘medical Newtonians’ like Pitcairne and Keill have been studied; but they were engaged in a more literal project of directly transposing, or seeking to transpose, Newtonian laws into quantitative models of (...) the body. I am interested here in something different: neither the metaphysical reading of Newton, nor direct empirical transpositions, but rather, a more heuristic, empiricist construction of Newtonian analogies. Figures such as Haller, Barthez, and Blumenbach constructed analogies between the method of celestial mechanics and the method of physiology. In celestial mechanics, they held, an unknown entity such as gravity is posited and used to mathematically link sets of determinate physical phenomena (e.g., the phases of the moon and tides). This process allows one to remain agnostic about the ontological status of the unknown entity, as long as the two linked sets of phenomena are represented adequately. Haller et. al. held that the Newtonian physician and physiologist can similarly posit an unknown called ‘life’ and use it to link various other phenomena, from digestion to sensation and the functioning of the glands. These phenomena consequently appear as interconnected, goal-oriented processes which do not exist either in an inanimate mechanism or in a corpse. In keeping with the empiricist roots of the analogy, however, no ontological claims are made about the nature of this vital principle, and no attempts are made to directly causally connect such a principle and observable phenomena. The role of the “Newtonian analogy” thus brings together diverse schools of thought, and cuts across a surprising variety of programs, models and practices in natural philosophy. (shrink)

These four papers develop a single argument across a connected sequence. The argument begins with a question: when does existence become self-defending? The answer—closure of mutual correction among maintenance processes that share a common fate—generates a structural account of identity that extends from the emergence of individual entities to the formation of hierarchies, coalitions, and the reconfiguration that follows collapse. The first paper defines the threshold condition. Identity is not a substance, a narrative, or a container. It is the moment (...) when scattered maintenance processes lock together into a fate-sharing topology—when correction becomes configuration-relative rather than fragment-relative. That closure produces, simultaneously, meaningful boundaries, collective failure modes, and persistence as a property of the configuration rather than its parts. The paper grounds this claim in dynamical topology and demonstrates it through organ transplantation and biological reproduction. The second paper asks what follows. Once a closure forms, it restructures the constraint landscape around it, generating conditions for further nucleation within itself and in its vicinity. Nested identities appear—closures within closures—coupled bidirectionally to the host. The paper introduces the decoupling threshold: the structural mirror of the identity threshold, marking the point at which a nested identity’s internal maintenance becomes sufficient for independent operation. Guided nucleation, the decoupling modes (sponsored, pathological, post-mortem), and the seed-field concept are developed here. The third paper addresses a structurally distinct event: lateral closure, in which multiple independently nucleated identities stabilize into a shared persistence regime. Unlike nesting, the participating identities predate the higher-order topology and retain the capacity for independence. The Shared Exposure Condition specifies what each participant must accept—partial relaxation of boundary defense—and explains why lateral closure is categorically rarer and more fragile than nucleation or nesting. The paper applies the framework to ecosystems, political federations, biological symbiosis, and psychological integration. The fourth paper examines the event the first three treat as a boundary condition: the failure of closure. When a self-maintaining topology ceases to obtain, the corrective flows that constituted it do not vanish. They redistribute. The paper identifies four reconfiguration outcomes—dissolution, fragmentation with local persistence, absorption into adjacent closures, and metamorphosis—and specifies the thermodynamic constraints that channel reconfiguration toward one rather than another. It demonstrates that the complete identity circuit—nucleation, nesting, coalition, collapse, resaturation, renucleation—is a thermodynamic cycle governed by conservation of the energy that funds maintenance. A single mechanism operates throughout: mutual correction becoming configuration-relative. That predicate applies recursively—to raw fragments, to nested closures, to autonomous identities—generating the full structural vocabulary of identity dynamics from one condition. The four papers are intended to be read in sequence. Each presupposes the constructs introduced in its predecessors. The series is self-contained; engagement with the broader Identology corpus is not required. (shrink)

The question is: how does the thought of Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein lead to such different postfoundationalist views as those of Charles Taylor and Richard Rorty? I consider how the "phenomenology of everyday life" in Heidegger and Wittgenstein shows (1) that understanding is dependent on a social background of meanings, and (2) that the sense of reality embodied in our actions is prestructured by language. This picture of everydayness is holistic, antidualistic and nonfoundationalist. I conclude by focusing the (...) debate between Taylor and Rorty, suggesting that Taylor's reading of our current philosophical situation is more viable. (shrink)

Since its composition, Laozi’s Dao De Jing has been interpreted variously—as political strategy, metaphysical doctrine, religious scripture, or a guide for personal cultivation. Yet these readings are often constrained by historical reductionism, philological disputes, or religious mystification, thereby obscuring the true essence of Laozi’s thought. This paper advances a scientific interpretation through the lens of systems science and modern cosmology. Employing the framework of the “Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology,” it reexamines the formulation—“Dao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, (...) Two gives birth to Three, Three gives birth to all things”—as a philosophical expression of cosmic evolution. In doing so, it reveals profound insights into cosmic genesis, natural order, and human governance. Such a reading not only modernizes Laozi’s philosophy but also provides intellectual resources for humanity amid ecological crises and civilizational transformation. 关键词 · Keywords：老子 Laozi；道德经 Dao De Jing；系统科学 Systems Science；宇宙观 Cosmology；老-杨创世纪宇宙观 Lao-Yang Genesis Cosmology. (shrink)

Are they needed? To be sure. The Darwinian industry, industrious though it is, has failed to provide texts of more than a handful of Darwin's books. If you want to know what Darwin said about barnacles (still an essential reference to cirripedists, apart from any historical importance) you are forced to search shelves, or wait while someone does it for you; some have been in print for a century; various reprints have appeared and since vanished." -Eric Korn,Times Literary Supplement (...) class='Hi'>Charles Robert Darwin (1880-1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. His books were widely read by specialists and the general public, and his influence had been extended by almost continuous public debate over the last 130 years. New York University Press' edition makes it possible for the first time to review Darwin's public literary output as a whole, plus his scientific journal articles, his private notebooks, and his correspondence. This is the first complete edition containing all of Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original paginations with Darwin's indexes retained. All illustrations and plates are presented, inclucing 82 color plates of birds and mammals and several folding maps and plates. The set also features a general introduction and index, and textural introductions in each volume. (shrink)

两千多年前，老子在《道德经》第一章提出了一个非常深刻的问题： -/- 人类为什么很难真正理解宇宙？ -/- 很多人以为这一章是在讲宇宙的神秘本体，其实如果仔细阅读会发现，老子讨论的重点并不是宇宙本身，而是人类如何认识宇宙。 -/- 换句话说，这一章其实是在思考： -/- 人类认知世界时会遇到什么困难？ -/- 如果把老子的思想用现代语言总结，可以发现他指出了三个重要障碍： 1. 语言的局限 2. 命名带来的认知框架 3. 欲望带来的认知偏差 -/- 这三者叠加在一起，使得人类很难真正理解宇宙的本质。 -/- More than two thousand years ago, Laozi raised a very profound question in Chapter One of the Dao De Jing: -/- Why is it so difficult for humans to truly understand the universe? -/- Many people think this chapter is discussing the mysterious essence of the universe. However, if we read it carefully, we will find that Laozi’s focus is (...) not the universe itself, but how humans understand the universe. -/- In other words, this chapter is actually reflecting on a fundamental question: -/- What difficulties do humans encounter when trying to understand the world? -/- If Laozi’s ideas are summarized in modern language, we can see that he pointed out three important obstacles: 1. The limitations of language 2. The cognitive framework created by naming 3. Cognitive bias caused by desire -/- When these three factors are combined, they make it very difficult for humans to truly understand the essence of the universe. (shrink)

Despite his position as one of the first philosophers to write in the “post- Darwinian” world, the critique of Darwin by Friedrich Nietzsche is often ignored for a host of unsatisfactory reasons. I argue that Nietzsche’s critique of Darwin is important to the study of both Nietzsche’s and Darwin’s impact on philosophy. Further, I show that the central claims of Nietzsche’s critique have been broadly misunderstood. I then present a new reading of Nietzsche’s core criticism of Darwin. An important part (...) of Nietzsche’s response can best be understood as an aesthetic critique of Darwin, reacting to what he saw as Darwin having drained life of an essential component of objective aesthetic value. For Nietzsche, Darwin’s theory is false because it is too intellectual, because it searches for rules, regulations, and uniformity in a realm where none of these are to be found – and, moreover, where they should not be found. Such a reading goes furthest toward making Nietzsche’s criticism substantive and relevant. Finally, I attempt to relate this novel explanation of Nietzsche’s critique to topics in contemporary philosophy of biology, particularly work on the evolutionary explanation of culture. (shrink)